Congressional Honorariums

Your revealing article (May 20) on the gift-grubbing gluttony of Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), matched only by his lavishly extravagant life-style cheerfully subsidized by the tobacco industry he protects. For the most of his 50 years in public life he was greedily gorging himself at the public trough of free hotel, motel, planes, vacations etc. Anything “Ol Strom” wants, he gets.

Of course the thick-skinned Strom defiantly reports all this baksheesh as required by law. Reelection is just a formality, no question. Malfeasance, a nettlesome word occasionally crops up when someone has the effrontery and folly to run against “Ol Strom.”

This voracious repository of covetousness will be welcoming the 21st Century, leaning against a bale of tobacco, waiting with his goody-bag to refill to the detriment of the nation.

All this while many senators meticulously divulge the most trivial of presents for fear of electoral backlash. This double standard exists at a time of national revulsion against the death-dealing drug.

The demand for the weed in America has diminished through legal and moral legislation. To offset this loss the United States has been actively pushing tobacco exports to reluctant Third World countries at attractive prices.

To fulminate against this ancient anachronism seems futile.

South Carolina should cover itself in shame with a tobacconists fig leaf to hide the suffering the drug represents.

LOUIS E. HYMAN

Los Angeles